Speed changing and coupling device



April 10,1934. E. LEY

I SPEED CHANGING AND COUPLING DEVICE Filed Oct. 29, 1952 Patented Apr.10, 1934 UNITED STATES SPEED CHANGING AND COUPLING DEVICE Emil Ley,Muttenz; near Basel, Switzerland Application October" 29, 1932, SerialNo. 640,283

' In Switzerland October 30, 1931 1 Claim. (Cl. 192-61) The presentinvention relates to a hydraulic speed changing and coupling device ofthe kind wherein the rotating driving element is-provided with a'drumcontaining a liquid body affecting,

5 upon rotation of the drum, 1:. ring like form, whilst the drumencloses liquid feeding rotary gears which are in operative relationwith the element to be driven and the purpose of which is to es tablisha circulation of the liquid, these liquid feeding rotary gears 'beinglocated within an inner housing and being controlled in such a way by acontrolling mechanism on the latter capable to throttle or not thecirculation of the liquid so as to transmit, or not,'the driving motionof the driving element to the element to bedriven.

The invention concerns a particular form of said controlling mechanism.According to this in vention, the controlling mechanism comprises foreach liquid feeding gear two liquid channels with-'- in said housing,one for to and the said gear,

the same transverse plane, but

the admission or liquid;

their outer openeings axially displaced to one another on the outer,

periphery of said housing, in combination withxan axially slidablecontrolling periphery of said housing,..arranged w as; to.

throttle more or less the liquid delivery channel;

1 whilst keeping the admission channel perma- 3 nently open, and havingthe form 0151a housing. enclosing cup? with end openings for allowingaxial circulation of liquidlarou'nd saidvalve. In order that theinvention may be mo'rer. fully understood, there will now be described,byway of example, and with reference to the accompanying drawing "a.preferred. embodiment of the invention.

Figure 1 is a. partial longitudinal section through the device:

Figure 2 is a cor responding: transverse section according to line A.--B oi. Figure 1 and Figure 3 is a to: a view of device. a p adesignates th' a rotating driving shaft and b designates the rc itatingdriven shaft. Securely mounted on the s .haft a is a drum 0 made of twopieces. The dru m a contains a liquid, ior instance oil, whicl h, uponrotation of the um, forms a ring on the inner wall of the latter byvirtue oi the .081 ntrifugal force. Provided in the drum 0 is a. orrcular member (1, having in the present case th ree cavities e, forinstance. which are uniformly f iistributedabout the rotating axis ofthe device. In each or thecavities d thereis a toothed liqui a feedinggear Lwhich is rotatably other for thdelivery of liquid fromz havingtheir inner openings within" valve on the outer a certain part of themounted in the oppositely situated walls of the d. Each of the cavitiese is in open 7 member communication with two channels g, it, havingtheir inner openings within the same transverse plane and terminatingathifierent points of the periphery of the member (I. The channel 9serves for the admission and the .channel' It for the delivery ofliquid, whichduring operation of the device flows out of the circularliquid body in the drum 0, by rotation of the-.feeding gear j J aboutits own axis in a direction indicated by the arrow 2: through thechannel etc the gear 1.. which feeds it along its peripheryto thechannel: h, where the' liquid will join again the circular. liquid body.

The outer openings g of the oil? admission channels 9 of the threecavities e are uniformly distributed on the periphery of the member 111within "one and the same transverseplane; in.- a similar. flianner, theopenings h of the delivery channels it: of the three cavities eaarealso-uni.-

formly distributed on the periphery 1 0i the member zdg. but theyarearranged in a transverse planewhi'ch is axiallydisplaced witln respectto the planementioned before. 'Whilstithe openings, 9 ofthe" admissionchannels 9 artsconstantly open; tlhe'operrings h of the deliverychannels it can be partly or entirely closed. To this end, there: isprovided a circular controlling valve 11 on the periphery of .the memberd, this valve being slid able in the axial direction and? adjustable inposition by means of a.controlling lever is which is. connected to asleeve i provided on the valve 1' and extending laterall r: out of thedrum; c, as shown inFigure' l. The oilfeeding gears f are in engagcmentby their teeth with a common toothed wheel 7 m, which is keyed on theshaft b, to be driven. The sliding valve thas the formv of a cup withopenings i in its bottom for allowing axial circulation of liquid aroundthe valve, which may be of some advantage for cooling purposes.

The operation of the above described device is as follows: I,

In the illustrated position of the valve 1', the openings h? 01' thedeliverychannels h arelehtirely open. I

When the drum 0 is rotated by the shaft a, the liquid in the drum 0 willassume the form of a ring "o,'which will cover the openings 9 kprovided. of course, that there is a sufficiently large 1 quantity ofliquid in the drum 0, whilst the feed-' ing gears 1, which rotate asplanetary elements around the axis of rotation of the drum, by theirrolling ofton the common toothed wheel m, will continuously shift acertain quantity of liquid through the corresponding channels g, h fromone place-to another; The toothed wheel m and the shaft b are at rest,which means that the device is in its running light or no-loadcondition. If now the valve 2' is shifted in such a manner that it willcover more or less the openings h of: the delivery channels h, thecirculation of the liquid through the channels g, h will be more or lessthrottled. As a result thereof, the rotation of the feeding gears 1about their own axis will be braked at a corresponding rate, andinasmuch as these planetary gears I continue to rotate with the drum 0,they will exert a corresponding torque upon the toothed wheel m, so thatthe latter will be rotated with a peripheral speed corresponding to thethrottling rate of the liquid circulation, this peripheral speed beingfor the moment still smaller than the rotating speed of the drivingshaft a, so that the driving movement of the shaft a will be transmittedat a certain speed changing rate to the shaft b. I

When finally the valve i is shifted so far that it will entirely coverthe openings h of the delivery channels h, the circulation of the liquidin the feeding gears f is completely stopped, so that the-latter nolonger rotate about their own axis. The gears f now drive the toothedwheel m together with the shaft b in the same way as a coupling, with arotating speed which nearly corresponds to the rotating speed of theshaft a. The

[device is in a direct drive condition.

It is clearly evident, from .the foregoing, that by displacement of thecontrolling valve 1' any desired speed changing rate between the drivingshaft and the shaft to bedriven can be obtained,

the rotating speed of the driving shaft being thus transmitted to theshaft to be driven in a smooth continuous way and not by steps.

Instead of the three liquid feeding gears only one or two, or more thanthree could be provided in the device. The toothed feeding gears canalso be replaced by other rotating feeding gears, for instance by wingedgears or the like.

The liquid which may be heated on its circulation in the drum 0, maycool down on the rotating peripheral wall of the latter exposed to theouter air. The drum could,"of course, be provided with cooling ribs orwith special cooling means.

The described device may also advantageously be used as a simplecoupling to be combined with the usual speed change gear in auto-cars.

What I claim is:

In a hydraulic speed changing and coupling device of the kind comprisinga driving element, a driven element, a liquid containing drum fixed tothe driving element, a housing within said drum, arranged so as to dipinto the ring of liquid formed within the drum when being rotated, atleast one liquid feeding rotary gear located in said housing and havinga cooperating toothed member, fixed to the driven element, a mechanismfor controlling the flow of liquid through said liquid feeding gear,comprising two liquid channels within said housing, one for theadmission of liquid to and

